Saina demolishes Pui Yin Yip, storms into Hong Kong semis
By IANSFriday, December 10, 2010
HONG KONG - India’s Saina Nehwal stormed into the semifinals of the Hong Kong Open Super Series badminton with a ruthless demolition of her Asian Games-slayer Pui Yin Yip 21-11, 21-10 here Friday.
Second seeded and World No.4 Saina, who went down to the Hong Kong player in the singles quarterfinal at Guangzhou, gave a commanding performance to wrap up the match in just 26 minutes against the World No.12 in the Queen Elizabeth Stadium.
She will now take on Juliane Schenk Saturday for a place in the final. Saina has a 4-2 head to head advantage over the World No.6 German and Saina has won all of their past three meetings, the last one coming at the the All England quarterfinals this year.
It was not a comfortable victory for Schenk, who battled past Chinese fourth seed Yanjiao Jiang 21-14, 16-21, 21-12.
Saina changed gears from 8-7 and pocketed eight points in a row, controlling the net with finesse and taking the game beyond Pui’s reach.
In the second game, Saina broke free from 8-all and opened up a 13-10 lead. From there on, Saina stamped her class as she cruised to victory without conceding any more points.
The other semi-final will be an all-Chinese affair between top seed Xin Wang and third seed Shixian Wang.
Saina has been in rampaging form this year, winning three back-to-back tournament in Indian Open, Singapore Open and Indonesian Open Super Series in June, besides winning the Delhi Commonwealth Games gold at home. She also achieved the career-best ranking of World No.2.
Saina is the lone Indian survivor in the tournament as others in fray in men’s singles Arvind Bhat, Parupalli Kashyap and Gurusai Datt have bowed out.
